The Church, the State, and the Special Place of Religion

Over the last six weeks on Wednesday lunchtimes in Sheffield Cathedral, a range of speakers have taken us from Old Testament Israel to discussions taking place right now about the place of Sharia Courts in British society. In this sixth and final talk in the Religion and Lawseries, ‘Church Establishment in a Global Context’ by Prof. David McClean, many themes raised before emerged once again.

The established nature of the Church of England is often seen as an anomaly – something out of step with the rest of the world, and thus dated and in need of change. This criticism declares that the links between the Church and the crown are ill-suited to the diversity of religions which now form a part of the United Kingdom.

In England, these links between the Church and the crown go back to the Act of Supremacy in 1538. The Act made King Henry VIII the Head of the Church, so it was his right to elect bishops, deans and some vicars, and to ratify any decisions made at a general synod. Today, royal assent for Church appointments and new pieces of law is still needed. The ‘masterly inactivity’ of the Tudor monarchs in retaining the original settlement of the 1530s still has echoes in how the Church of England is run in the present.

But this relationship between church and crown is not entirely unique, nor only associated with England. David McClean highlighted a number of examples where the church and the state work together. The Danish Church, for instance, is so entwined with the crown that it is effectively an arm of the state, run by a “Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs”.

In Greece, although the Greek Orthodox Church is technically the ‘dominant’ and not the ‘established’ Church, it’s still heavily state funded. Even in France, where the relationship between the Church and the State is probably the most hostile, in some areas, such as Alsace-Lorraine, the Church still receives favourable tax benefits and direct financial support.

The nature of the established church, or rather the place of the church and religion across Europe, highlights a key theme across this series of talks: that of the often special relationship of religion in law. The interlocking of the Church of England and the crown as described by David McClean recalls the close connection of Christianity with the Roman Empire and how their development became closely entwined; but also the special position of clerics within the law of England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and how this ‘benefit of clergy’ continued to have resonance throughout Europe into the modern era. Another example is the intrinsic nature of Islamic law to the life of Muslims and how it guides their lives and their communities, and thus becomes a part of secular laws and systems.

The relationship between religion and law, between religion and the state is thus an old one that echoes down the centuries, and remains an area of debate today over the place not only of the Church of England but of all religions and laws in the UK.

And that’s not surprising: because religion isn’t a static entity. Throughout history, it has worked alongside secular laws, as well as created its own rules. Different communities create their own laws to define them. It’s the interaction of individual religious groups and their laws with that of secular law which shapes the societies we have today: and the societies we’ll have in the future.